In Kazakhstan, editor released from jail

Igor Vinyavsky, editor of the
independent weekly Vzglyad, was freed
from a Kazakhstan prison on March 15, 2012, on the orders of an Almaty court,
according to news reports. The journalist had spent two months in pretrial
detention after being arrested by the KNB, Kazakhstan's
security service, news reports said.

Vinyavsky
was charged with "making public calls to overthrow Kazakhstan's constitutional
regime," news reports said. He was accused of committing the crime with unknown
accomplices and faced up to seven years in jail if convicted, news reports said.
The journalist's colleagues told CPJ they believed the KNB imprisoned the
editor in retaliation for his reporting on the December 2011 deadly clashes between police
and oil workers then on strike in western Kazakhstan.

Vinyavsky
was released after prosecutors "could not prove he had acted as part of an
organized criminal group, which is a less grave crime," his lawyer, Gennady
Nam, told
Reuters. The journalist was freed immediately, and the case against him was
closed, the journalist said.

The
editor told CPJ that the KNB returned the reporting equipment they had seized
during the raid on Vinyavsky's apartment and the Vzglyad offices.